Hope
by Raven and Writing Desks
Summary: Upon seeing Sasuke on the battlefield again, Sakura's heart begins warring with her head and in the end, she does something rash and unexpected. Why? For hope of course. One-shot, Sasusaku


Hope

The last thing she saw was his eyes widen in shock. Filled with emotion.

_That's all I ever wanted Sasuke-kun. To see a trace of the boy I used to know. _

* * *

The battle had been rough. Blood stained the forest floor, weapons were imbedded in the ground, and multiple trees had been blown apart due to being caught in the crossfire of warring shinobi.

The worst part was that it was still raging. Battle shouts and cries of pain could be heard in the distance, but Sakura didn't let any of it break her concentration. She had a job to do and then she could go back to assisting her comrades.

She walked amongst the fallen bodies, searching for any signs of life. Any glimmer of chance. She spotted severed limbs, gutted bellies, and many corpses that appeared to be simply broken, as if they were toys that a child had handled too roughly.

This was the life of a medic-nin: studying the gory aftermaths of battle, searching for hope where there was none. Slowly, she studies the field for any sigh of life.

A chocked gasp in the distance drifts to her ears and instantly she is in motion. A man, no, a boy lay on the ground writhing in pain. Strangled shrieks emit from his mouth and with one glance, it's apparent why. The right side of his chest is missing. His entrails spill out into a messy pile below him and next to his head lies a puddle of vomit.

Sakura places green glowing hands on his face and instantly starts to calm him. "Shhh, relax." She soothes, but the boy just keeps screaming.

"His eyes! The eyes! They bleed!" His rambling shouts continue as Sakura sets to work with easing his pain. "They spin like pinwheels, but they're not pinwheels. They're death!" Sakura pays little attention to his curious choice of words as she infuses chakra into her arms in order to restrain the flailing boy. She reaches into her pack and searches for a blood tablet; the boy obviously needed it.

"The sword! It burns! Like lightening!" At this the kunoichi falters, thinking of her last encounter with her ex-teammate. _Could Sasuke have done this? _

She remembers the coldness in his eyes, the maniacal laughter that escaped his throat as he delivered a killing blow. She knows that he's more than capable of this type of brutality, but she pushes the thought away as she focuses all her energy on the fallen shinobi.

Her years of medical training hammer in the fact that she cannot give up on him. It feels like hours of practically fruitless work when the boy stops fighting her and his screams are quieted, but the half of his chest that is still intact continues its shuddering rise. Sakura looks up at his pale, sweat streaked face; his eyes are trapped in a blank stare at the sky and his mouth moves slowly. Sakura leans in to hear what he's attempting to say.

"So beautiful, so bright," These are the only words Sakura can make out as she starts pushing more charka into his system in a last-ditch attempt to ease the pain. "Just relax," She soothes him. "Rest your eyes." The boy does what he's told, and Sakura removes her hands from his body.

No sooner than after the boy took his last breath, a painful cry erupts from the mouth of a man a couple feet away from her. She rushes in the direction of the noise and finds the man, who appears to have a hole in his chest.

"Doc, p-p-please h-help me." He pleads as she settles beside him. "I-I need to get h-home and tell my w-wife that I love her."

Sakura gives him a gentle smile, but inside her heart is wrenching. She had heard it all before, the last wishes and regrets of the dying. She could cry about it later, but right now she has to stay calm for the man that's dying in her arms.

"It's alright, I'll patch you up in no time." She begins sending probing chakra in the wound to check the damage. "Why don't you tell me about your family." She tells him, knowing the best way to calm him down is to distract him.

"My wife is the m-most beautiful woman in all of Konoha, p-probably even the world. She's a civilian and is a-always worried about me. This was going to b-be my last m-mission before I retired." Sakura fights back the tears as she searches the damage done to his heart. Even with healing chakra it's a near-impossible wound to heal.

She lets her chakra flow into him, allowing it to starting stitching up the damage.

"Th-then there's my daughter, Rin. She's f-four." The man starts coughing up blood so Sakura turns him to the side.

"I'm going to save you." She says as her eyes start to darken due to strain. The man's breathing slows. "I'll save you." She continues to chant the words like a mantra.

When his breathes stops altogether, Sakura lets out a ferocious yell of frustration. In an act of immaturity, she pounds her fist to the ground causing a slight fissure to form. After settling down, she moves her hands over his face and closes his vacant eyes. A lone tear trails down her face and drops to the blood soaked grass, as she imagines a little girl anxiously waiting for a parent that will never return.

She takes a deep breath, trying to erase all thoughts of the two shinobi that had just died in her hands and of the families that would be delivered the heart wrenching news that their love one had died.

She finishes scanning the area and detects no other signs of life. So with a heavy heart and burdened mind she makes her ways towards the sound of the still-waging battle, ready to resume her position in the fray.

As she enters the second clearing, a similar sight to the one from before befalls her eyes; the only difference is the still fighting shinobi. Seeing a man about to be impaled from behind, she jumps in and deflects the blow. Blades locked, she raises her eyes to see the face of her opponent only to be met with two menacing Sharigan.

"Sasuke!" She exclaims under her breath. He gives her a twisted humorless smile before pushing off her blade.

"What? No –kun? I thought I was precious to you Sa-ku-ra." His words drip with sarcasm as he enunciates each syllable of her name.

The two former teammates begin to circle each other. "The Sasuke that I used to know was precious to me. You're just a jerk with the same face as him." Sakura spits out as she readies her blade.

At this, Sasuke scowls and charges at her. Fueled by the anger of not being able to save the two men, Sakura's ready for him and is able to put up some resistance. The clang of metal on metal rings in her ears.

With a satisfied smirk, she is about to taunt Sasuke about being out of practice, when a high-pitched chirping sound rings in her ears. He had charged his blade with the chidori and at the contact, and electrical jerk courses through Sakura. The jolt causes her to drop her blade and Sasuke takes the opportunity to make a large gash in her side.

The pink-haired kunoichi drops to her knees for a second and begins sending healing chakra to the gash. But her chakra levels are low and she only gets a chance to partially heal it before Sasuke pulls her up by her short locks. She searches his face for any sign of humanity, but all she perceives is an expression as cold as stone.

She locks eyes with him once again, surprisingly; he has dropped his Sharigan leaving only abyss-like, emotionless orbs of black. Her brain flashes an image of the dying boy and echoes his cries of pain in her ears. Her heart argues with her brain, telling her that it could have easily been somebody else. The burning sensation of tears forming prickles the back of her eyes.

_Who else has red eyes with spinning pinwheels in them and wields a lightening blade?_ Her brain mocks her naïve, innocent heart. _The boy that you loved as a child is gone. _And when the stoic man throws her to the ground causing her to hit her head on a rock, her heart finally admits defeat. Her eyes droop close as she loses consciousness.

When she's opens her eyes again, her vision is warped and her stomach is churning, a sure sign of a concussion. She attempts to focus her chakra enough to start healing the gash on her head, but her reserves are dangerously low. Estimating that she hadn't been out for more than a minute Sakura slowly begins to sit up in order to take in her surroundings.

The battle's still waging and shinobi are still fighting for their lives. To her left she spots Sasuke squaring off with two Konoha nins. Confusion washes over her as she realizes she's not dead, Sasuke should have killed her, shouldn't he?

Drawing her attention back to her former teammate she's shocked to find him looking at her from the corner of his eye.

_Maybe there _is _a glimmer of him left? _Her heart foolishly hopes.

_Yeah right, he probably just didn't think we were worth the energy to kill. _Her ever logical brain quips.

Still pondering his actions, Sakura finds herself entranced by his fighting style. He evades oncoming attacks and counters them in one fluid movement. He's ruthless and cruel when he strikes back, taking advantage of any shown weaknesses.

An offender attempts to strike his right, but he dodges to the left and then uses the momentum to chidori him through the chest. Sakura lightly shakes her head, ignoring the throbbing that accompanies the action, to break from her reverie. Those were _her_ fellow citizens he was attacking.

She gets to her feet and slowly starts walking back towards him. Tenderness in her ankle causes her to limp slightly, but she eventually makes her way to the throng of Sasuke's challengers.

She's still in awe at the grace and ease that her ex-teammate portrays and she continues to studies the battle waging in front of her. Sasuke sneaks a glance at her over his shoulder and is momentarily caught off guard.

Sakura can't stop the slight gasp that escapes her mouth, when a shuriken embeds itself in his side. When he reaches down to pull it out, another of his opponents takes the opportunity to lunge forward in an attempt to impale the distracted ninja through the stomach.

Before she realizes, Sakura is in motion. She pushes Sasuke out of the way of the oncoming blade and pins him to the ground. Sakura notices his eyes widen and takes pride in herself for stirring a reaction from the ever-stoic Uchiha.

Her momentary triumph is forgotten when she spots the blood beginning to pool on the taunt skin of his bare front. Next, she notices the blade sticking out of his ribcage. She follows the bloodstained metal with her eyes, until she reaches her own torso. It's then that she feels a sharp pain shooting through her body.

When she had pushed Sasuke out of the way, the blade had stabbed her in the back, through the heart, and out her chest. The momentum must have been great enough to allow the sword to pierce Sasuke too, but it was barely a centimeter in his skin. She had taken the brunt of the blow.

A look of panic and anger crosses the raven-haired man's features.

"Why, Sakura?" he practically yells in horror, his strong hands moving to grasp her above her hips. "Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?" The sounds of war around them had silenced.

Even though the pain is coursing through her and her eyelids are starting to feel heavy, the fading kunoichi begins to smile.

"Because…" She moves her hands to lightly touch his cheeks, her weight being supported by the elbows situated on both of his pectorals. His onyx eyes, now full with emotion, stare up at her expectantly. "…I still have hope for you."

He stares at her for a moment, letting the words sink in.

"I know you can heal yourself." He says desperately. "Damn it Sakura! Heal yourself." Sakura's thumb rubs the wet trails now present on Sasuke's face.

"Sasuke-kun," She barely breathes. The suffix unconsciously added after seeing the slight glimpse of the boy from her childhood. "Don't let my hope be in vain." With her last wish uttered, she allows her eyes to close, and her heart beats one last time, as if to tell her brain, _I won. _

* * *

**A/N: I got a little frustrated with this piece and considered not posting it, but I was like "What the heck, might as well." Fighting scenes will be the death of me, maybe I should just stick with comedy and romance. Anywho, I FINALLY got around to making a Livejournal account. Link is on my profile, or you can search me by my username "Ravenxxmoon". Feel free to "friend" me; I will be posting sneak peeks as well as progress reports and other goodies on here. Check it out! **

**ALL CRITISIM WELCOME! **


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